Quick eBay photography tips for beginners

This eBay photography & pictures tutorial will surprise some of you. It’s not in-depth like almost all of my eBay Tips & Tutorials are.

However, I did this on purpose.

Over the years, I’ve found that one of the #1 reasons people don’t get started selling and making money on eBay is their fears about taking product photos.

Some photography fears are “I can’t afford good lighting, props, backgrounds, and a camera”.

Even when folks can make an investment in their equipment they will say, “I don’t know what to buy or how to use a camera, lighting, etc.”

So, I made this super short tutorial to show that taking great photos for your eBay listings is no big deal and anyone can do it!

Those of you who know me, know my favorite saying is, “Keep it simple”. Just watch this 2:30-minute video (or read the transcript below) and see how easy it is to be an eBay photography pro, even when you’re a total beginner.

I don’t have a fancy schmancy photography studio set up. I use a wall in my living room. I don’t have tons of high-tech photography equipment. I mostly use my cell phone! My backdrop is a $1.50 foam board instead of a crushed velvet $45-per-yard drape.

Bottom line, you don’t have to invest big money or be a National Geographic photographer to be able to take awesome photos that will help your items sell faster and make higher profits.

Transcript: Quick eBay photography tips for beginners

You may remember when I bought this shirt. I also bought a coat for $5 and some change.

This is where I take photos. Here I’ve got a couple of these kind of lights set up on each side. I’m actually in my living room. We sold all our living room furniture so that we had a nice photo taking room and a meeting room, so it works out really well.

Here I’ve got my shirt all ready, and what I’ve done is I use this foam board, this white foam board, that comes in a dull white. You could buy it in different colors. Also I have it in black and blue. I like this. I have it set up on a table, and then I just pop a tack in the wall to where I want to take a photo of, and then I make sure my shirt is all buttoned up. Then I’ll take a photo of the front and then the back. I’ll do a close up of the birds, and then I’ll also do the tag.

I like to use a tool called PhotoScape, and I also have PhotoShop, but I like PhotoScape for editing photos really fast. Then I will crop it so that all that stands out in my photo is the shirt itself, and I’ll do the same with the jacket. I’ll show you.

Here I have the jacket hung up. I’ll also take photos of the sleeves so that people can see a close up. I think that’s really important to see the sleeves and that they’re nice and clean.

Then the zipper, this is a heavy metal zipper, like vintage style, and I think that it’s really important to show the good quality and to mention the good quality of the zipper.

This is a heavy coat, and I’ll include close-ups of all of these things that are little details. Pay attention to detail. I think that’s really important to help sell an item, and, of course, how clean the inside, the fleece, is.

eBay photography is easy, right?

Attitude is half the battle. As you see in this video I’m totally nonchalant about angles, lighting, backgrounds, equipment, etc.

Now, Vogue and Cosmopolitan are not going to ask me to photograph supermodels for them anytime soon but stick with my eBay Photography & Picture Tutorials. My tips and tricks have served me well enough that I’m an eBay Top Rated Powerseller and you can be, too! 😉